Pages

Thursday, August 27, 2015

The story is as you read it: Once a
monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have buddha nature?” Joshu answered, “Mu!” The
Chinese character means “nothing,” or “”nonbeing,” or “to have nothing.”
Therefore, if we take this answer literally, it means, “No, a dog does not have
buddha nature.”

But that is not right. Why not?
Because Shakyamuni Buddha declared that all living beings have buddha nature.
According to the sutras, when Shakyamuni Buddha attained his great
enlightenment, he was astonished by the magnificence of the essential universe
and, quite beside himself, exclaimed, “All living beings have buddha nature!
But owing to their delusions, they cannot recognise this.”

The monk in the story could not
believe these words. To him, buddha nature was the most venerable, most highly
developed personality, and a buddha was one who had achieved this perfect
personality. How then could a dog have buddha nature? How could a dog be as
perfect as Buddha? He could not believe such a thing was possible, so he asked
Joshu sincerely, “Does a dog have buddha nature? And Joshu answered, “No!”

Joshu, great as he was, Could not deny
Shakyamuni’s affirmation. Therefore his answer does not mean that a dog lacks
buddha nature. Then what does Mu mean?

This is the point of the koan. If you
try to find any special meaning in Mu, you miss Joshu and you’ll never meet
him. You’ll never be able to pass through the barrier of Mu. So what should be
done? That is the question! Zen practitioners must try to find the answer by
themselves and present it to the roshi. In almost all Japanese zendo, the
explanation of Mu will stop at this point. However, I’ll tell you this: Mu has
no meaning whatsoever. If you want to solve the problem of Mu, you must become
one with it! You must forget yourself in working on it. Your consciousness must
be completely absorbed in your practice of Mu.

The above extract
is from the wonderful ‘The Book of Mu’ edited by James Ishmael Ford &
Melissa Myozen Blacker, and is published by Wisdom Publications. Koun Yamada
was a Japanese Zen master and former leader of the Sanbo Kyodan
lineage of Zen Buddhism.

Monday, August 17, 2015

Upaya, ‘skilful mean’s or ‘expedient means,’ is a
fundamental aspect of the Buddhadharma (Buddhist teachings). Whatever teachings exist, they are skilful means
to use in our awakening to the Dharma (‘the-way-things-are’). In addition,
whatever practices are used, they can be applied in a skilful way to inspire
& support our awakening.

Sometimes, Buddhists can cling (upadana)
to the Buddhadharma just as fundamentalists that are Christian, Muslim, atheist
or whatever may also do with their deeply-cherished beliefs. Seeing Buddhist
scripture in the same way as a fundamentalist Christian views the Bible is not
the purpose of the Buddhadharma. In truth, it is a misuse of it, often leading
to arrogance & intolerance. Buddha encourages us to let go rather than to
cling; Buddhist teachings & practices can be used to awaken with, but to
cling to them as being incontrovertible truths is to miss the point of their
skilful use as promoted by Buddha.

This appropriate attitude to the
teachings is related to Buddha’s teaching on views (ditthi). Any view
can be classified as right-view (samma-ditthi – a view in line with
basic Buddhist teachings) or wrong-view (miccha-ditthi – a view that
contradicts the Buddhadharma). Buddha, however, advised against clinging to
right-view. Not that he promoted a kind of libertinism – to possess wrong-view
is way more damaging than to hold right-view, as our views will affect our
thoughts, actions & deeds. Nonetheless, understanding life in tune with
right-view is one thing; dogmatically-clinging to it as unquestionable doctrine
is another. It’s worth recalling that Buddha taught us to question his
teachings and accept only those that we could verify for ourselves, or at least
complement what we have already understood. He describes the Buddhadharma as
having the quality of ehipassika – ‘come-and-see’ or ‘look-for-yourself.’

Understanding skilful means this way,
we can open up to Buddhists with different views & practices to our own.
They may use various forms of the Buddhadharma skilfully (or not), but recognising
all forms of Buddhism as potential expressions of the same spirit of expediency
towards awakening at least leaves us open-minded towards them. A Theravada
Buddhist can use the teachings & conventions of their tradition skilfully
whilst recognising that a Zen Buddhist may do the same with theirs. Ditto,
Tibetan & Pure Land, or Nichiren & secular Buddhism. Moreover, it can
be seen that non-Buddhists may be awakening to our true nature via their
traditions also. This doesn’t mean clinging to the view that ‘all roads lead to
Rome’ and that no differences should be highlighted, however. It simply means
using one’s own path skilfully whilst being open to the possibility that the
same may be so for others walking very different paths. It’s up to each of us
to use what we have skilfully. As Buddha says: Walk on!

Friday, August 7, 2015

There is a church in the middle of
Newcastle that has painted on the front doors, ‘Hate all Evil. Love all Good.’
If you were brought up with that sort of conditioning, as many of us were, you
will inevitably have been led to this inwardly divided state. According to this
teaching – which I am sure is entirely contrary to the Way of Jesus – God loves
good and hates evil. The good ones he embraces and takes up to heaven where
they have a good time forever, and the bad ones he chucks into hell where they
have a bad time forever. With this kind of conditioning, when, in the face of
recognising our faults we want to be virtuous, we start playing God; we set up
this almighty tyrant in our minds that’s sitting in judgment all the time. We
end up eternally taking sides for and against ourselves – and it is terrible,
it tears us apart.

The good news is that taking sides is
not an obligation – we don’t have to do it. We don’t have to follow these compulsions.
With simple, careful, kind, patient attention we can recognise them as a
tendency of mind. They are not the mind itself! They are not who and what we
are. And having seen them, little by little, we are less caught up in them. As long
as we don’t start playing their game by judging the judging mind, saying, ‘I
shouldn’t be judging,’ we take away the counter-force which gives these
tendencies their vitality.

We come to know the judging mind as it
is. The judging mind is just so. There is nothing inherently wrong with the judging
mind. Its ability to evaluate and discriminate is an important part of the
intelligence that we as human beings use for our safety and survival. The
problem is that its influence has become disproportionately large in our
day-today living, and it never wants to be quiet! Through careful feeling-investigation
we can come to see this hyperactivity for what it is and allow the
discriminative function to resume its proper place. We experience whatever is
happening with our full attention but with calmness and some degree of
equanimity. In each moment that we see the judging mind objectively – just as
it is – we purify the underlying view that we have of life.

In the deeper dimensions of our being
there’s this kind of work to do. I would suggest that if we have the agility to
move in and out of these various dimensions we will become adept at addressing
very complex issues. In our daily life we can usefully set time aside, perhaps thirty
minutes each day, to sit in formal meditation, and this agility will grow. Even
ten minutes of well-spent sitting, being still and going back to the basic
feeling of a total non-judgemental relationship with life, to perfect
receptivity to the moment, can be of great benefit. Call it meditation, call it
contemplation, call it whatever you like! It is a way of putting some time
aside to value this part of life, to keep this faculty alive. And I trust that,
as we emerge into the more mundane workaday activity of our lives, in which we
engage with people in situations and make decisions and so forth, we will find
that we have a firmer foundation. The decisions we make will be informed by an underlying
clear view.

The above is
taken from the excellent book ‘Unexpected Freedom’ which is freely downloadable
here.

Ajahn Munindo has been a Buddhist monk since 1975
and studied with the forest monks Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Sumedho. He is the abbot
of Aruna
Ratanagiri Buddhist Monastery in northern England.